Media as a Political Leader's Reputation Management Tool in the Country in the Evironment of International Political Conflict

Despite the vast research by domestic and foreign scientists on the specifics of reputation management of a political leader, insufficient is known about the perspective of the reputation regulation in the media during international conflict. The presented research is intended to explore the role of media in managing leader’s reputation inside the country at certain stages of the conflict through the analysis of media space in correlation with coverage of Vladimir Putin's political behavior during the Ukrainian conflict (March-September 2014) and in-depth study of interviews with candidates in political science and specialists in political communications. Here the main tasks are to combine a theoretical basis on political communication technologies in the sphere of conflictology with the real case. Despite the theoretical background of a problematic field that the author outlines in the first part of the work, the research also provides an applied approach towards studying the role of the media in reputation management of a political leader during the particular conflict. From there implications on the attitude to functions of the media in political reputation management in terms of the conflict will be provided. Considering the practical significance of the research, it should be said that the socio-political aspects of reputation category allow the in-deth study of the relations between the political leader and the society and between the society and the media, a psychological system of expectations and preferences of social groups during the conflict. It is important to monitor the perceptions of the government reputation also during political campaigns and special events.